


The System

by ncfan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Can be taken as gen or femslash, Canon Speculation, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Loss, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikoto knew the truth, and what needed to be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The System

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by a fanart I saw on Tumblr a long time ago, linked below. All credit goes to the artist, newt-fruit:
> 
> http://newt-fruit.tumblr.com/post/125480491432/wow-i-cant-believe-mikoto-was-the-one-to-organize
> 
> Further note: this fic can be taken as gen or femslash. Personally, I prefer the latter, but since there no real text as regards to KushiMiko in this fic, I have not tagged it as such as I don't want to disappoint shippers looking for more the barest of hints..

The morning showed the wreckage all too clearly, though it would be several days before all the dead were identified, their memorial service organized. The cost in lives and damage to property had been extensive, though Mikoto was to understand that it was not as bad as it had been in the past, in other villages, with other bijuu. Already, Konoha had begun to rebuild; the clang of hammer against now rang out all around the village, from the moment the sun rose to the moment it descended, orange and scarlet crowned with gold, behind the mountains. If you worked, you would soon forget the chill in the air. But that could be of little consolation to the cold dead, or to the living they had left to mourn them.

Mikoto had scarcely been able to rouse herself to attend the memorial service. Sasuke had cried all through the night, every night, since the Kyuubi had rampaged, and Mikoto could hardly sleep for two hours at a time without waking to his plaintive cries. Itachi’s sleep was disturbed as well; he lied curled up next to her in bed, and clutched at her hair, her arm, her skirt, whatever hold his small hand could find, whenever she got up. Her own heart was weary, and quiet. She would have rather sat in silence than go out in a crowd.

But Fugaku, despite his own reluctance, insisted she come with him and the boys to pay their respects. _“I don’t know if you know this yet, but Sandaime and his councilors have been asking questions.”_ His eyes had flashed hard and bright, and Mikoto didn’t need to ask what he had meant. _“I’ve already told the rest of the clan—anyone fit to attend_ must _attend. It would be better if we were all there_.”

The memorial service had been much as Mikoto expected. A lone voice at the front of the crowd spent the better part of an hour reading out the names of the dead, until that voice cracked and wavered, barely audible by the end. Then there was the long procession to the bier, to lay down chrysanthemums or spider lilies or whatever flower the mourner deemed appropriate for the occasion, until the bier was lost in a sea of white, red and yellow flowers. Mikoto had attended many funerals in her time, and not a few memorial services as well. None of this was new to her. She could have achieved the same mood by staying at home and sitting by her grandmother’s grave. She would have felt less exposed, there.

Having practically the whole Uchiha clan turn out for the memorial service had done little in the interest of putting on a good front for the rest of the village. Mikoto felt her skin prickle from suspicious glances the whole time. From civilians and lower-ranking shinobi, it was the same sense of unease any of them evinced when the Uchiha clan showed up en masse, like they could taste blood in the air. Mikoto had had years to learn how to ignore it, to let it not bother her, but today, today what normally passed over her like a blunt sting made her blood roar in her ears.

Worse were the hard, considering looks from Sandaime’s councilors and many of the high-ranking jonin of the village. A sufficiently powerful Sharingan could subdue even the power of a bijuu, and bind it to the user’s will. This was not widely disseminated knowledge, and for good reason, but any who were in the know now turned their eyes to the Uchiha.

Even unspoken, the accusation was like a knife twisting in Mikoto’s ribs. _Your paranoia has cost you much that can never be replaced_. The more it went on, the more she wanted to scream.

Mikoto took her leave of the service as soon as it was seemly to do so. She left Itachi and Sasuke with Fugaku, who nodded slightly to her, apparently sensing his wife’s distress. A few of her clansmen trailed after her, but it was only a small number that returned to the Uchiha compound, and they dispersed without speaking to her. Mikoto was thankful for that. She could find no more peace at home than she had found at the memorial service.

She sat in a secluded corner of the garden, under the shelter of an old beech tree whose branches had been stripped naked by wind and frost. The dry, brown grass whispered without a voice as it brushed against her legs. Her knees were pulled up to her chest as she had often done when she was still a child. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest.

Kushina’s had been one of the names read out at the service, of course—it would have been unacceptable for her name not to be called. Unlike Minato and Sarutobi Biwako, Kushina had not been granted the honor of having her portrait sit on the bier. If it had been more widely-known whose child she was carrying, she might have merited more effort in the eyes of the planners, but as it stood, she was just one more shinobi killed in the Kyuubi’s rampage. No one important.

 _No one important, indeed_.

Mikoto had known what it meant, the moment she saw the Kyuubi shining like a second sun in the darkness. She knew what it spelled for Kushina for it to be loose, and what it likely spelled for her child as well. Kushina had said it herself—no jinchuuriki had ever survived the extraction of the bijuu. _“The stress it puts on the body, and the damage it does to the chakra system, it’s just too much,”_ Kushina had explained a few years ago, gesticulating wildly as she so often did when explaining something to do with sealing and chakra. _“It didn’t just kill Mito-sama because of her age; even someone in the prime of their life wouldn’t be able to survive having their bijuu extracted. And if it breaks the seal on its own, well, that’s it, too.”_

Kushina’s child had survived. The baby had come out of everything miraculously unharmed. But Kushina herself was dead, cut down in the prime of her life as many jinchuuriki had been.

The worst of it was how utterly _unnecessary_ it had been.

Mikoto pressed her hand tightly against her mouth, though whether to constrain a scream, a sob or even a laugh, she couldn’t say. This didn’t have to happen; absolutely _none_ of it had to happen. Kushina’s death was pointless, and so was everyone else’s. It all could have been prevented, so easily…

Kushina had confided her fears to Mikoto regarding what would happen when she gave birth fairly early on. They were friends, and Mikoto had already gone through childbirth herself. Childbirth was difficult enough an experience on its own, but when there was also the Kyuubi’s seal to contend with? Mikoto had offered her services at Kushina’s childbed several times. They were friends, and Kushina had been there when Mikoto had Itachi and Sasuke. The seal containing the Kyuubi was at its weakest when the host was giving birth, and in the interest of keeping it from breaking loose, the presence of an Uchiha with a strong Sharingan would hardly go amiss.

But the higher-ups had rebuffed all of Mikoto’s offers, one after the other, until Sarutobi Biwako and Utatane Koharu had come in person to tell Mikoto that under no circumstances was Mikoto to be present at Kushina’s bedside when the latter gave birth. The day Kushina’s pregnancy became widely-known was the last day Mikoto was allowed to be alone with her; there was always someone hovering at Kushina’s shoulder after that, staring at Mikoto with an overly-cautious gleam in their eyes. As October approached, that cautious gleam turned to Kushina’s minder of the day hurrying her along, as though Mikoto might hurt her.

As it had turned out, Kushina had been in far greater danger from her protectors than she had ever been in from Uchiha Mikoto. _I would have stayed by her side. Maybe I would have been able to stop the Kyuubi, or maybe I wouldn’t, but I would sooner have died than I would have ever abandoned Kushina, or hurt her. If ever I had been given the chance to prove it._

Kushina was dead, one among many casualties of the village’s distrust of the Uchiha clan, but certainly the most needless. Minato was dead, too, and their child wailed forlornly in a hospital bassinet, claimed by no one—a child the hospital staff wouldn’t even let Mikoto hold or comfort in any way. And now, _now_ , the surviving leadership had the gall to suspect the Uchiha clan of engineering the Kyuubi’s rampage.

 _“They will not trust you, but you must bear it._ ” That was the refrain that had come down to Mikoto all her life. Her grandmother’s words, her mother’s, and her own, whispered to herself at night in candlelit rooms. The Uchiha were vanquished foes of the Senju, and it was the Senju who ever ruled Konoha. It was the lot of an Uchiha to protect the village, but never be trusted by it. It was Mikoto’s lot, and she had been taught to bear it, in the hope that maybe those who came after her would not have to bear it, too.

But this, this… This was a disaster that could easily have been averted, had those in power trusted the Uchiha. None of it had to happen. Kushina didn’t have to die. All it would have taken was the leaders of Konoha having faith in those who had always been faithful.

And yet, they had refused to allow an Uchiha to attend Kushina while she gave birth, not even her best friend.

And yet, the Kyuubi had burst its bonds, and destroyed lives and property alike.

And yet, Kushina was dead, the victim of her own leaders’ paranoia. She would never see her son grow up, and Mikoto would never see her again.

The leaders of this village were so distrustful of the Uchiha clan that they preferred risking such things as this to asking an Uchiha for help. Mikoto could see it now—people like that would _never_ accept her clan, nor her. They would continue squeezing, squeezing, squeezing the Uchiha clan into submission, and if more innocent people died because of it, well… That was just the acceptable cost of subjugating an old foe, wasn’t it? Who cared if any of their other subjects were even left to follow them, so long as they finally ground their old foes to dust beneath their feet?

_This didn’t have to happen. She didn’t have to die._

Mikoto’s eyes burned.

_But it’s only going to keep happening, if something isn’t done._

When her husband finally returned, Mikoto’s voice rang out through the house, hard and clear and cold. “Fugaku? We need to talk.”


End file.
